I think a lot of people love type because it combines creativity with analysis. A font is a personal little machine.

hhp

...because it’s better than having to find a real job.

…because it looks so pretty. Just like some other things with curves in them…

I was drawn to typography by a long road of literary study & writing mixed with some fine arts background, which eventually led to the combination of these in approaching the letterforms I’d been studying for years as text. This, anyway, is what brought me to publishing, and publishing to book design, and book design to typography and type.

This has been the professional route anyway. Just as important, however, has been the personal process. Hrant will likely grunt at this, but it strikes me as no surprise that I’ve been drawn into this stuff as a profession as well as an interest. I say this because, well, I’m not all that sociable. I prefer to work from home, or, better yet, from the small cabin I live in during the summer. I prefer to work slowly on a project that is painstaking in its demands, yet quiet in its result. There is a huge sense of accomplishment when I finish a project I’ve worked on for months, yet a large part of my approach is to remove myself from the project as much as possible. I like the relative annonymity. The internet, of course, has made this much easier in terms of working with/for clients, but my laptop also allows me to work from that little cabin, or anywhere else.

I suppose what I’m attempting to get at is that while graphic designers tend to be quite social, trendy, hipster types, typographers & type designers tend to be a bit withdrawn & quiet (I know, a gross generalization). At least for me anyway, as much as my aesthetic & formal training led me here, it was my personality that pushed me to pursue the finer and more understated points.

...because of the making of books, there is no end.

One of my favorite quotes about type (and one reason why I like it). Regiomontanus in 1475, from Carter’s A View of Early Typography, pp. 40—41.

In the workshop an astrarium is kept in continual motion: a thing marvellous to behold; and other instruments are being made for observing the heavens, as well as appliances for everyday use, whose names it would be tedious to recite. Last of all it has been decided to practise the wonderful art of making printing type for lasting records, and may God prosper it! Once that is mastered, though the workman die soon after, death will have no bitterness for him, knowing as he will that he has left to posterity a gift to save them for ever after from want of books.

... because type forces my thoughts and words to be made visual.
... because i love contrast.
... because there is nothing more beautiful than the curves of a letter.

Type is an integral part of my visual palette. But whereas the common observer can generally recognize and relate to the imagery of photos, illustration, color, graphic shapes — type remain the most subtle element yet strongest in influence.

Type is a micro-study visible to only a few... it’s almost magical what can be done with it and even though I’m an expert, it never ceases to amaze me.

Jason, I grunt in hermit-like agreement.

hhp

there is much fulfillment knowing that this [seemingly] obscure craft has been shared by people throughout the ages.

the principles of ledgibility that we apply to this craft have been understood and developed by a range of people including those who painted hyroglyphics on papyrus, and by others who carved roman inscriptions into stone.

in this day and age, with so many other things rendered obsolete, typogrpahy will continue to thrive, taking on many new forms.

—————
nc

Eric, by the way, everytime I see your thumbnail I walk around giggling for hours. It speaks (well, screams) directly to the seeming inability to walk away from the glowing box in front of me even for the basics of food & sleep. Given opportunity (and I give it plenty), this love of all things type eventually leads to pixel-driven psychosis on an almost daily basis.